tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 30 13:22:18 2001
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Re: cholbogh poH: the future
nuQum Lieven (Quvar):
: "Das Beste an der Zukunft ist vielleicht der Umstand, daß immer nur ein Tag
: auf einmal kommt!"
:
: I somehow like it, it means
: "The best aspect of the future is perhaps the fact, that there comes only
: one day at once."
Better English: "... the fact that it only comes one day at a time." Or have
I misunderstood the German?
: I tried to translate it, not the words only (it wouldn't work), but the
: meaning more general.
Agreed. Since Klingon doesn't have grammatical tense, talking about time is
difficult. No doubt there is some (technical?) way to refer to the Past,
Present or Future (especially considering how prevalent time travel - or
"temporal mechanics" - seems to be in the Trek universe!), but we don't know
what it is... at present <g>.
: {chaq nIteb DuSuchmo' jajmey chu' cholbogh poH DaSIQlaH}
:
: Literally:
: "Perhaps you can only endure the coming time because the new days visit you
: alone."
If {chaq} refers to the clause "you can only endure the coming time", then keep
it with that clause. And "only" refers to the clause "because the new days
visit you alone", so you need a {neH} following that verb, which has to have
the prefix {ni_} "they [do something] to you". All together, this becomes:
chaq cholbogh poH DaSIQlaH, nIteb nISuchmo' neH jajmey chu'.
"Perhaps you can endure the coming time only because the new days
visit you alone."
: Whaddya think?
This is a bit awkward, though I'm not sure there's a good way to render the
idea of "one at a time". To me {nIteb nISuchmo'} implies that the new days
visit *you* alone" - i.e. you are the only one that they visit. (But this may
only be the English translation "because they visit you alone" interfering.)
YMMV.
Maybe {qaS} "happen, occur" would be better":
chaq cholbogh poH DaSIQlaH, nIteb qaSmo' neH jajmey chu'.
"Perhaps you can endure the coming time only because the new days happen
alone."
Hmm... still not right. Perhaps someone else has a better idea.
BTW, I've also seen *{tlha'bogh poH} "the time (period) which follows" used for
"the future".
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons